Unexpected Character / MCU Phase 3

Phase 3

Captain America: Civil War

• Before the title announcement of the movie revealing it would adapt the Civil War-storyline from the comics few would have guessed this movie would feature Iron Man, the Avengers and the just-debuted Ant-Man as well as being the debut of Black Panther and Spider-Man (see below for Spider-Man especially). Many thought it would be a continuation of the Winter Soldier-arc from the previous movie which when "Civil War" was announced as the title lead some people to fear that arc would get aborted. Of course, Bucky appears in the movie as a big player nonetheless.
• Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross appearing in the movie, as it had been eight years from his last appearance (and The Incredible Hulk is the Oddball in the Series that rarely even gets referenced), reprised by William Hurt.
• Spider-Man makes his debut here, after a landmark deal between Marvel and Sony allowed him to appear in the MCU, which many didn't expect to ever happen.

Doctor Strange

• Few were expecting that Mads Mikkelsen would be playing Kaecilius, a servant of Baron Mordo, independently of him (as Mordo has been heavily reworked here).
• Christine Palmer is an obscure love-interest to Doctor Strange and many thought Rachel McAdams would be playing Clea instead.
• The Stinger shows Strange meeting Thor, teasing Strange's own appearance in Thor: Ragnarok.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

• It was known that a new member would join the team. It wasn't thought that the character would be Mantis, who is very obscure even by franchise standards.
• Few were expecting Star-Lord's father to be Ego the Living Planet, especially since they didn't even initially have the film rights to him at the time and had to work a deal with Fox.
• Sylvester Stallone's character was a shock. He's Starhawk, and he and his fellow Ravager captains are the original Silver Age Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Stan Lee's recurring cameos are revealed to come to be thanks to Lee playing an informant of the Watchers, a race of All-Powerful Bystander. While it actually was a popular fan theory that Lee was playing a Watcher, the unexpected part is that many believed Fox would require the rights for the characters thanks to their debut in Fantastic Four. James Gunn revealed that the rights were shared by Disney and Fox.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

• The Tinkerer is a minor Spider-Man character at best, so his role as Vulture's sidekick in the film comes across as rather surprising.
• Likewise, the Shocker's involvement in the movie came across as surprising to nearly everyone, as only one questionable rumor actually mentioned the character by name. Not to mention the fact that he's a B-list villain who was primarily known for having an Atrocious Alias.
• The return of "Happy" Hogan, especially in a Spider-Man movie of all places, came across as a bit of a surprise.
• While Ned Leeds is a classic Spider-Man character, this version of him appears to have nothing in common with any prior version of him outside of his name and instead seems to be based almost entirely on Spider-Man's friend Ganke from Ultimate Spider-Man. What makes this so unexpected is that Ganke was the best friend of Miles Morales and never even met the Ultimate universe version of Peter Parker before he died.
• Speaking of Miles Morales: Donald Glover has a small but plot-relevant appearance as Aaron Davis, Miles' supervillain uncle from the comics, even confirming he has a nephew in this continuity. The casting of Glover as a Miles-related character is especially noteworthy as he voiced Miles in the Ultimate Spider Man-cartoon and was a popular fancast for Miles in the days of the The Amazing Spider-Man Series with Glover himself as well as main star Andrew Garfield even expressing interest to him taking said role.
• Steve Rogers/Captain America pops up sometime in the film during a Captain America's Fitness Challenge video for Peter's gym class, which appears to have been recorded some time after the events of The Avengers. On the other hand, some people were guessing he'd make a cameo for this, as Cap has made an appearance in an MCU film every year since The First Avenger was released.
• Given that Damage Control was intended to be a Marvel television series on ABC, it came to the surprise of many fans that it would be appearing in this movie instead.
• The official cast list revealed a couple of surprise characters, including a pre-Scorpion Mac Gargan and a pre-Prowler Aaron Davis.
• Due to being such a new (and initially unpopular) character, many fans weren't expecting Cindy Moon to show up even in such a small role.
• Pepper Potts' cameo near the end of the movie came out of left field. Even the credits on the Homecoming posters covered her appearance up!

Thor: Ragnarok

• Nobody expected that Hulk's first full appearance after Avengers: Age of Ultron would be in a Thor movie.
• Doctor Strange is surprising in the sense that, while having magical abilities puts him more in line with what one would expect from a Thor movie, he wasn't announced to be a part of the cast from the beginning. This surprise was reduced significantly by The Stinger in his movie though.
• The Grandmaster was another major surprise due to his tenuous connection to the Thor comics.
• Korg and Miek as well, which made their Ensemble Dark Horse status even more surprising.
• Topaz is another example, considering that she originates in The Ultraverse line of comics which are set outside of the mainstream Marvel Universe. However, given that Malibu Comics is owned by Marvel, the company is theoretically free to use her or any other character from that setting.
• No one expected Thanos's ship to appear in the mid-credits scene.

Avengers: Infinity War

• Given that they're relatively new, were used almost exclusively by a single writer in the comics and were (at the time the film was being made), well, dead, nobody was really expecting the Black Order to appear in anything else ever again. Despite the name change to "the Children of Thanos", they appear in Infinity War, and their role in the film actually got them resurrected in the comics.
• A meta example with casting. While Carrie Coon was a surprising choice for Proxima Midnight, nobody was expecting Michael James Shaw to be revealed to be Corvus Glaive, especially when you consider he's best known for the Constantine TV series and that fans were pegging Peter Dinklage to voice Corvus.
• Speaking of Dinklage, the main guesses for his role before the movie came out were a voice acting role for Corvus Glaive or Pip The Troll, a cosmic character with comic links to Gamora and Thanos. He actually plays the dwarf Eitri (who ironically is giant in the movie), a character usually just connected to Thor.
• More like unexpected item, but after Mjölnir got destroyed in his last solo-outing, Thor gets a new weapon - an axe called Stormbreaker. Stormbreaker's appearance is a surprise as it's comic book owner, Beta Ray Bill hasn't appeared in the MCU yet.
• Nobody expected Red Skull to show up as the guardian of the Soul Stone, especially since the character hasn't appeared since Phase 1, specifically Captain America: The First Avenger, and had been gone for so long that many fans began to presume that he was dead.^note For context, The First Avenger took place in World War II, seven decades before the events of most of the Infinity Saga. There was also the fact that the Red Skull's original actor, Hugo Weaving, had previously expressed apprehension about returning to the MCU, so Marvel resolved this simply by recasting the character with Ross Marquand.
• More like an unexpected spell, but those well-versed in the comics may be surprised to see Doctor Strange bind Thanos with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, given the namesake of the spell is the deity that empowers the Juggernaut, a character Marvel Studios did not have the rights to as of filming. That this version of Strange doesn't engage in Calling Your Attacks like the comics one probably helped.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

• Ghost is an obscure Iron Man villain appearing well after his movies were done, and never antagonized any version of Ant-Man. Here, Ghost appears, albeit gender-flipped and heavily-reworked.
• Sonny Burch, another Iron Man villain, and ridiculously obscure to the point of not having a Wikipedia page, fills out the Big Bad Ensemble with Ghost.
• Jimmy Woo was a surprise, as he has little involvement with Ant-Man.
• Try Unexpected Actor, but the actor playing Bill Foster / Goliath is Laurence Fishburne. Nobody would have imagined Fishburne being part in the MCU due to the fact that he was, at the time of the announcement of him being in Ant-Man and the Wasp, still playing Perry White - Superman's boss at the Daily Planet - in the DC Extended Universe.

Captain Marvel

• Though they always had the rights to the Skrulls, the fact that almost all of the individual members had their rights tied to Fox made it seem impossible to use. They appear and are important to the movie.
  • Even fewer people were expecting, of all Skrulls, Talos the Untamed to be in the film. Not only does Talos in the comics not have any ties to Carol Danvers or the Captain Marvel lineage, but he actually lacks the classic Skrull shapeshifting abilities, instead having Super-Strength. Of course, Marvel Studios' solution to the latter part was simply to give him the shapeshifting abilities, not that there's anything wrong with that, but his presence in the film caught even the most astute of comics fans by surprise.
  • One of the Skrulls featured in the film has been identified as a character, Dorrek, who, in the comic books, is an ancestor to Hulkling from Young Avengers, who, despite the name, is of Skrull descent and whose Skrull name is Dorrek VIII. While it's an incredibly obscure reference, it only serves to fuel increasingly rampant speculation that The Young Avengers are on the way.
• Before it was announced that Captain Marvel was a prequel set in the 90s, few had expected a de-aged Samuel L. Jackson returning as Nick Fury or Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, making it Coulson's first and only movie appearance since The Avengers.

Avengers: Endgame

• The return of Harley Keener, the Tagalong Kid from Iron Man 3, was a surprise to most people. Even many fans who'd seen the film didn't recognize him during the funeral sequence since his actor was now a tall, lanky youth in his late teens.
• Few were expecting Cassie Lang to appear in the movie, or moreover, an older version of her in line with her comic counterpart.
• While Clint returning in this movie was expected, what wasn't expected was him donning the mantle of Ronin rather than Hawkeye. It was the identity he had in the comics after coming back to life when Civil War (2006) was over and his original identity was taken by Kate Bishop. Here, it's to show that he's become a violent vigilante and Death Seeker during the Time Skip after he lost his family in the Downer Beginning.
• It's safe to say that nobody was expecting Crossbones to return like Frank Grillo revealed. He appears in the past alongside Jasper Sitwell, who is equally unexpected, to retrieve the Chitauri Scepter during the aftermath of the Battle of New York.
• Given that her role in Doctor Strange's solo movie was relatively self-contained and was killed off midway through, very few people expected The Ancient One to make a reappearance in this film, especially during the events of 2012's Battle of New York.
• Jane Foster's return took a number of people by surprise, especially since her actress, Natalie Portman, had reportedly been on bad terms with Marvel over disagreements about Thor: The Dark World, which is why the character was previously MIA during Thor: Ragnarok.
  • The Russo Brothers confirmed they used unused footage from The Dark World. However, they did have Portman record new dialogue to be heard off-screen. She also attended the movie's premiere and has stated that she is now open to returning in future Marvel projects.^note In fact, the original script had her take the role of giving Thor a pep talk that lets him complete the mission before they decided Frigga would work better. Marvel allowing more creative freedom for directors and actors in Phase 3 probably has a lot to do with this.
• Similarly, many people were surprised that Rene Russo not only returned as Frigga but shared a very important and plot-significant scene with Thor instead of a brief cameo like Jane Foster.
• James D'Arcy reprises his role as Edwin Jarvis from the Agent Carter series, marking the first time ever that a character from an MCU TV series appears in an MCU film.
• Robert Redford's return as Alexander Pierce was completely unexpected given his retirement from acting (the reason why he's in the movie is that the scene was filmed on the very same day that he retired).
• The most surprising participant in the Battle of Earth: Howard the Duck, who has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo with the Ravagers.
• While Thanos appearing in the movie was of course a given, few could have expected that the main antagonist would end up being a younger, alternate timeline Thanos who takes the place of the version seen in the previous movies.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

• Mysterio wasn't the first choice for the Big Bad when it came to speculations, as he's something of a joke in the comics, he was thought to have had a movie in development by Sony already for their universe, and it looked like Scorpion was being set up with Mac Gargan's cameo in Homecoming instead.
• The Elementials are very obscure characters who aren't connected to Spider-Man at all, but to Namor. Than the marketing of the movie revealed the MCU's Elementials to be a group of actual Spidey-villains - Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man and Cyclone - reimagened as elemential monsters. Of course, it turned out they were just illusions by Mysterio. However, Marvel trying to make the audience believe that obscure villain group would be the real Big Bads of the movie as they tried to hide The Reveal that Mysterio is evil all along seems kinda hilarious looking back at the marketing.
• Nick Fury and Maria Hill have roles in the movie, after having been Out of Focus since Age of Ultron (the former only finally showing up in a major role in Captain Marvel), was definitely out of the blue. Making this even more unexpected, is that the "Nick Fury" and "Maria Hill" we see throughout the movie aren't even the real versions. Rather, they're Talos and Soren impersonating them in compliance with the two while they're on vacation.
• No one expected Remy Hii to play Brad Davis, who only dated MJ in one issue all the way back in 1979, and is so obscure that even the most hardcore of Spider-Man fans were likely unaware of him. Marvel and Sony took so long to reveal who exactly Hii plays, that most expected someone more important to Spidey's life, such as Harry Osborn, a new villain, or the forthcoming Shang-Chi.
• Mr. Dell is another example. He only appeared in three issues and debuted in the late-'90s (long after Peter graduated college, much less high school) in the lesser-known Webspinners anthology comic, and was a very minor character in all three of those appearances.
• William Ginter Riva, a minor character from Iron Man, makes a return after the most extensive Long Bus Trip done in the Marvel Cinematic Universe up until that point. There's even a short clip of Obadiah Stane yelling at him!
• On an organization-level, few expected that S.W.O.R.D. would be appearing in the MCU as The Stinger suggests. For one, it's a lesser-known branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. (itself Out of Focus since it was dissolved in The Winter Soldier), dealing with extraterrestrial threats rather than Earth ones. Second, though they technically always had the rights to the organization themselves, S.W.O.R.D. was initially scrapped because almost all of the members (starting with characters such as Abigail Brand, Beast, and Lockheed) are considered part of the X-Men side of Marvel (debuting in the Astonishing X-Men) and thus they only just got the film rights before Far From Home's release. The fact that it's being set up carries massive implications for what will happen post-Infinity Saga, but what exactly it is, we don't know.
• The biggest one of all, said to be on a mind-blowing level: J. Jonah Jameson, reprised by his Spider-Man Trilogy actor J. K. Simmons^note Who, much like the aforementioned Laurence Fishburne in Ant-Man and the Wasp, was seen as being contractually obliged to perform in the DCEU (in Simmons' case, Jim Gordon), in the mid-credits. Not only were many expecting J.J. to be Adapted Out, but the fact that this is only the second time a non-MCU Marvel Studios movie role was reprised in over a decade of MCU movies (after Lou Ferrigno's cameo/voice-over in The Incredible Hulk) only added to the shock.